


As leaves before the wind

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Autumn, Gen, Guilt, Post-Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Wandering sons of Fëanor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-28 00:08:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8423074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: The leaves were falling from the trees, a sign of the things to come.





	

The leaves were beginning to fall from the trees in the forest that sheltered them, even as the air grew colder. It still surprised Caranthir sometimes, even after all these years, that on this side of the sea the leaves died and fell once a year, all at once, in a blazing riot of colour, melting into the forest loam and smelling of decay and endings. He was certain it hadn’t been like that in Aman.

_(Or had it been? It had been so long ago, that sometimes he thought his memories of that strange, pastel-coloured world of his childhood might be only dreams. He had dreamed a lot as a child; less so now. The thought carried fear along with it, for some reason, and that made him angry, unsettled.)_

Still, it had been many years since he had come to this land. He was used to it by now. It was simply something that happened, like the waxing and waning of the moon, the waters of the restless ocean and their tides.

They had taken the shelter the woods had given them for granted for too long. The bare branches afforded them less cover, and food was growing scarce among their group of survivors, wandering through the forest trying to find safety, never more than half a step ahead of the servants of the enemy.

The leaves were falling from the trees. Maglor would have made a song about it, Caranthir knew; a lament for the ending of the leaguer, the breaking of the siege, bittersweet and full of mourning, and beautiful enough to draw tears. _Leaves falling from the trees, drifting in the wind or some such_ , he thought. 

In fact, Maglor _did_ make such a song; he made several of them, in fact, and happier ones too. Sometimes when they set up camp, they sang them around the glow of the fire in hushed voices in the dark of the long night, to drown out the howls of wolves in the distance.

It kept the people’s spirits up, Caranthir supposed, and that was what mattered. Maglor knew that well. For Caranthir’s own part, he cared hardly at all for such things. He cared more about the fact that they were being hunted by the servants of the enemy that had been sent out to finish off the stubbornly-surviving sons of Fëanor. He cared more about the fact that food was running scarce ( _and hadn’t Thargelion once provided most of the grain and wine and fruit to East Beleriand, from Amon Ereb to the Marches of Maedhros? The great roads along which wagons and carts bearing food and supplies had rolled were overgrown now, and not safe for passage, the waypoints too exposed and easy for the unwary traveller to be ambushed at_ ). Their people were weak and listless from cold, hunger and grief.

He cared about the message that had come from the north, in the hand of a dying soldier. The message that Himring had fallen soon after the battle, and their last hope of a safe refuge, a place to fortify and regroup, was gone.

He worried about his eldest brother’s face turning stone hard and remaining so, a little more worn and grey every day, as though winter had come early to Maedhros’ heart.

Inside Caranthir’s chest, a fire raged every day. A fire of guilt. _For hadn’t he been the one who trusted too easily, hadn’t he let traitors plot behind his back?_

_Wasn’t he the one responsible for this?_

He hated those thoughts; they made him clench his hands into fists, thickly-gloved fingers digging into his palms. More than that, they were not helpful. None of them could afford to break apart now, after all. 

Guilt made him weak, and he could not afford to be weak anymore. None of them could.

They spoke of retaking Himring, once. From there, Celegorm argued, they could rebuild the leaguer, build up supplies and send out armed companies over the Marches, in time. _They had enough people, it was likely that Morgoth had the fortress lightly held. He didn’t need to fortify it; for him, Himring was a mere trophy, a taunt to hold before Maedhros face, and that of the remaining Noldor, because he wasn’t expecting them to try to retake it. He wouldn’t be expecting an attack; there might even be some of Maedhros’ people remaining there who had been enslaved by the orcs and would turn back to their former lord if given half a chance_ …

Maedhros dismissed the idea out of hand, with hardly more than a shake of his head. Caranthir found himself agreeing with his eldest brother. Himring was too far north, too exposed, and they were too few and too weak, for all those who joined them sometimes, wandering bands of the injured and weary and the broken. Better to try to slowly make their way south - by roundabout, wandering ways of stealth - than to all go down fighting one last righteous battle for what they had once held as their own. 

Or at least, most of the time he thought that. Sometimes, he would look at Maedhros, and see the dullness in his eyes, his hair like rusted metal streaked with grey-white, and he would think that perhaps it would have been better if they had died. So much of Maedhros’ spirit had lain in the mortar and stones of Himring, he had built the place and its people up out of the very rock of the mountain passes itself. Some of him seemed to have fallen with the fortress, with the leaguer that Maedhros had held tirelessly for so long. His brother’s strength had been in enduring, in holding fast, and now, with the leaves falling and their people reduced to fleeing wanderers in the cold lands, what was he really? 

_What were any of them, really?_

Those thoughts were soon dismissed though, for he had an answer to that last question, at the very least. They were the sons of Fëanor, and they still had a task to do. 

“We will fortify Amon Ereb” said Caranthir, one day. “If we make it through to the south, then it is defensible, even with very few. Even in winter. Life will be hard, harder than even the years in Mithrim, but I believe it can be done.”

Already, Maglor and Curufin were nodding, and then Maedhros was barking orders, and soon enough they were travelling once more, travelling through the night, quiet and watchful.

It was all they could do now, Caranthir knew; he only hoped it was enough to hold off the dark for a little longer, until they had done what they must. 


End file.
